The Zamaan Trio at the Festival of Chichester

The Zamaan Trio join the Amici Concerts as part of the Festival of Chichester at St Pancras Church, Eastgate Square, Chichester on Thursday, July 12 at 7.30pm.

They will offer classical and traditional music from across the Middle-East, featuring the great composers of Syria and Egypt and performed by virtuoso Syrian musicians with a passion for their heritage: oud player Rihab Azar, bassist Fajer Alabdallah and percussionist Jamal AlSaka (Riq and Mazhar).

Meg Hamilton, co-organiser of the series, said: “Amici Concerts has often featured fascinating programmes of Middle Eastern music at Chichester’s St Pancras Church during the Festival. This year July our city welcomes young female oudist Rihab Azar and her Zamaan trio of Syrian musicians.”

Rihab said: “Zamaan means time in Arabic. I will be performing classical and traditional music from different areas of the Middle-East and will include music by the greatest composers of Syria and Egypt.

“I was born into a musical family in Syria,” she explains. “It is not often one comes across a female instrumentalist performing Arabic music.

“Traditionally the women sing. My father and first teacher is a luthier and made my first oud for me when I was seven years old.”

Rihab has studied and taught music at the Conservatoire of Damascus and in 2014 was the first woman oudist to perform as a soloist with the Syrian National Orchestra for Arabic Music.

“I moved to England in 2015 to study music education at University College London which has been a very exciting journey,” she says. Rihab’s studies in the UK have been sponsored by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Arts Council England, and she now performs at festivals and arts centres around the country as well as on BBC radio.